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Two Smudde siblings. One blog. No apologies.

Stranded in the Snow

So, it’s official. Michael and I are stranded in Pullman for Christmas.

In the last few weeks, Pullman has been absolutely covered in snow. I’m not sure how many inches we’ve had, but I know it’s enough to keep us and our cars grounded for fear of spinning out and ending up in a ditch.

To be honest, I’m a little bummed. For me, Christmas has never been anything but time with family. As you know Dan, we don’t exactly have a lot of family Christmas traditions, but even just hanging out at the parents’, eating pumpkin pie and playing board, games is enough of a tradition to make me feel nostalgic and homesick.

As I’ve been coming to terms with the fact we WON’T be getting out of Pullman for Christmas, I’ve realized that it might be time to start creating memories and traditions of my own. Right now we’re all still close enough to get together for the holidays, but that might not always be the case. If I move across the country I’ll be away from the family for most of the holidays and I can’t be moping around for the rest of my life. And what happens if one day Michael and I decide to have children? We’ll need some traditions to pass on to them.

So this week I’ve been thinking a lot about what Michael and I can do to make this Christmas seem festive and homey. I’ve come up with some ideas that I’m very excited about and I want to share them with you.

I’ve been calling my first idea the $30 Christmas Challenge. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is sitting around, drinking coffee, and watching everyone open their gifts. Well, as you probably know no one can afford the number of gifts mom and dad can. They would spoil us rotten and, as a woman with credit card debt and student loans, I can’t do that for myself or Michael. So I came up with a fun compromise for Michael and I. For this challenge, Michael and I will go to Walmart or the mall and we’ll each have $30 to spend on the other person. The idea is to get as many legitimate presents for the other person as you can. When I say legitimate, I mean no buying 30 bottles of travel deodorant or something like that. Think stocking stuffers, something the person would actually want. Whoever wins the game gets to pick the Christmas movie we watch on Christmas day.

My second idea is pretty straight forward: a Christmas Eve date day. During the holidays, Michael and I are always so busy and incredibly broke trying to get presents for everyone else. We rarely spend money on ourselves so we want to make Christmas Eve, the very last day of the holiday shopping season, a day to spoil each other. This year we’re going out for breakfast at our favorite cafe and then going to see Moana. Yes, Daniel. I will be seeing Moana tomorrow and I’m so excited!

My third idea is baking cookies for each other. Another memory I love from our childhood is making cookies with mom. I especially loved the shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate and walnuts. So good! Well, I want to continue that tradition and so Michael and I will be baking each other cookies on Christmas Day. I think I’ll be making snickerdoodles, which he loves.

My fourth idea is to find a video game we can play together. In my last post I talked about our N64 and that is still one of my favorite Christmas memories. I loved playing Mario and Legend of Zelda with you, Daniel, and I want to keep playing video games.